After invoking others to unite in praise, the writer celebrates God's protecting and delivering care towards him, and then represents himself and the people of God as entering the sanctuary and uniting in solemn praise, with prayer for a continued blessing. Whether composed by David on his accession to power, or by some later writer in memory of the restoration from Babylon, its tone is joyful and trusting, and, in describing the fortune and destiny of the Jewish Church and its visible head, it is typically prophetical of the Christian Church and her greater and invisible Head. (Psa. 118:1-29)

These words are applied by Christ (Mat 21:42) to Himself, as the foundation of the Church (compare Act 4:11; Eph 2:20; Pe1 2:4, Pe1 2:7). It may here denote God's wondrous exaltation to power and influence of him whom the rulers of the nation despised. Whether (see on Psa 118:1) David or Zerubbabel (compare Hag 2:2; Zac 4:7-10) be primarily meant, there is here typically represented God's more wonderful doings in exalting Christ, crucified as an impostor, to be the Prince and Saviour and Head of His Church.

he that cometh . . . Lord--As above intimated, this may be applied to the visible head of the Jewish Church entering the sanctuary, as leading the procession; typically it belongs to Him of whom the phrase became an epithet (Mal 3:1; Mat 21:9).

showed us light--or favor (Psa 27:1; Psa 97:11). With the sacrificial victim brought bound to the altar is united the more spiritual offering of praise (Psa 50:14, Psa 50:23), expressed in the terms with which the Psalm opened.